The Swallows Will Return
by thisbloodycat
Summary: Harry wasn't sure what he'd expected from life after the war—peace, obviously, a sense of accomplishment, maybe—but it certainly hadn't been this.


**Warnings:** Implied, off screen violence. Gagging. Nonlinear narrative.  
**Notes:** A very heartfelt and huge thanks to my beta, Jo, for being utterly fabulous. I wrote an eighth year story (because everyone has one and I'm an envious little shit.) Title stolen from a poem I used to love as a child.

* * *

Only a few weeks after an awkward little chat in the sixth floor bathroom—the one where Fred and George set up shop back in the day, when the war was just a faraway threat and the twins were still plural—Harry fucked Malfoy into the ground next to the Quidditch stands.

It happened after the Ravenclaw versus Slytherin match. None of the eighth years were allowed to play—"If you feel you're not busy enough," said McGonagall, "I suggest you devote your spare time to assisting the staff in the rebuilding effort," and that was that. Harry complained, of course, if only because it was expected of him; the Headmistress, however, remained unmoved.

Ravenclaw lost that game—just like Malfoy had clearly lost the plot, earlier that year—and Malfoy moaned and squirmed under Harry, and then sort of sobbed weakly around the tie stuffed into his mouth. It was a Slytherin tie, incidentally: Malfoy's own tie. It seemed rather fitting, since it had only wound up there on Malfoy's dare.

The sobbing was a bit perplexing at first, but only until Harry realised there wasn't any actual crying going on. Merlin, was he grateful for that. If that sorry excuse for a kiss back in fourth year had taught him anything, it was that tears were very much not a turn on of his. These soft sob-like noises Malfoy was making in his throat, on the other hand … they _could_ be.

_Sod it_, Harry thought eventually and let go. He came harder than ever before, with his jaw clenched so tightly it almost hurt.

"I guess you really are good at this," he said afterwards, his cock still pulsing deep inside the wet heat of Malfoy's arse. Harry was surprised by how much he meant that.

He meant it beyond the purely physical bliss of a mind-blowing orgasm. Not that _that_ bit hadn't been brilliant—it had; spectacular even. But shockingly enough, that wasn't what Harry found most memorable about this.

The bit he would never forget was the knowledge, the absolute certainty, that in that moment something had changed_. _He wasn't entirely sure how to label the feeling—lukewarm, maybe; a sort of muted relief, maybe—but the point was, he had felt _something_; and that alone was already more than he could say for the past few months.

Malfoy laughed faintly as he buttoned up his trousers. His sleeves were stained a greyish brown where they'd been pressed into the dirt. The tie lay forgotten on the ground—the fabric, damp, darker in places.

"I told you so." Malfoy's voice came out scratchy and a little hoarse, and Harry was again reminded of the bathroom incident.

"Still, there must be plenty of other stuff you're good at." At the time, Harry failed to come up with any specific examples, but no one was good at literally just one thing. Not even Harry.

True, he was mostly good at almost dying, but he also had a few other hidden talents: disarming Dark Wizards, for instance, or lately, pretending to give a shit about his NEWT scores around McGonagall.

Even if Malfoy—and Harry wouldn't put it past him—were somehow an exception to that statement, Harry reckoned that was the sort of white lie you were supposed to tell people under these circumstances: that they weren't just the village bicycle or something. Even if, on second thought, Malfoy probably was.

Either way, it was out now, and Harry didn't feel inclined to take it back, just as he didn't feel inclined to stick around thinking about village bicycles or making idle conversation with the likes of Malfoy, who was currently giving him a very odd look.

Before, when such things still mattered, that would have set Harry's teeth on edge.

"You never really underestimated me, did you, Potter?" An eerie little smile curved up Malfoy's face. "You just never liked me."

"I still don't," Harry said, and calmly walked away.

* * *

Some days, the undamaged parts of the castle felt completely alien to Harry.

He would walk down corridors he knew by heart, and it'd be like wandering around in a waking dream. Surreal. He'd walk into the old classroom where he'd had his Defence lessons for five whole years, and it would look just as it had before the final battle. _Everything_ would look just as Harry remembered it. And yet, it didn't feel familiar at all.

Harry would stand there counting desks—there were just as many—and staring at the cracks in the ceiling that still drew the same spidery doodles, in the exact same spots. They felt different, even as they looked the same. Something was _off_about them, and Harry could never quite pinpoint what it was. And when he left, he'd walk out into the third floor corridor, as he instinctively knew he would, as he had a thousand times before, and that, too, would feel entirely foreign.

Everything did.

Harry reckoned it should have been unsettling. It was certainly unpleasant, in some vague, subconscious way, but that felt like a small triumph in and of itself.

* * *

Months before Harry and Draco became an item—long before Harry even thought of buying the house Draco liked—Harry sat down next to Ron in the Great Hall, as he did at every meal. On this particular morning, however—because the end of the term was creeping closer and closer, and Ron was still Harry's best mate—Harry told him, "So, Malfoy and I—We're sort of …"

It had been going on for a while, the Malfoy thing—Harry was still at a loss as to what to call it—but only now, when Harry realised he wasn't as averse to it continuing after Hogwarts as he had once been, when he'd begun to wonder if the _thing_wasn't perhaps more than just a thing, did it seem deadly important that Ron _knew_.

Ron snorted. "You, too?"

"I didn't know you—"

"Fuck, no!" Ron grimaced, promptly shoving two large pieces of charred bacon into his mouth. "I wouldn't. I have a girlfriend, you know. Plus"—he cut up his eggs—"this is _the Ferret_ we're talking about, mate. That's just, ugh." He shuddered.

"Right." Harry raised his eyebrows. Maybe this hadn't been such a bright idea, after all. "Pass the jam?"

"Here."

"Thanks."

"Anyway … Not that I _mind_ or anything, that you've—I mean, good for you, Harry, good for you. Sort of. Though he's a total—" Ron snapped his mouth shut and glanced over at Harry, before brutally stabbing another slice of bacon with his fork. He sure seemed wordy today, even if he was looking rather green in the face. "But whatever flies your broom, really. We all know you've been a bit … well."

Certainly, Harry had been a bit, well—so much so, he'd actually noticed himself. But he'd been that way since the end of the war, so he was beginning to wonder if perhaps this was simply the new him; Harry Potter: the post-war edition.

He even wondered, sometimes, if all the pain and suffering during the war had left him unable to feel anything other than mildly annoyed. War could change people, or so he'd been told. He didn't much feel like dwelling on it, either way. What good could it possibly do? It was awfully tiring, and he was already sleeping far more than he ought to.

He'd rather think about the sixth floor bathroom, or about how warm Malfoy's hips had felt against his fingers—like a living thing; then again, that was to be expected since Malfoy was—thankfully—not dead.

Harry had been intrigued, that day, and intrigued had turned out to be a surprisingly nice feeling. Malfoy was special. He could make Harry feel different, _better,_ so Harry figured he might as well hold on to that for as long as he could.

"He's a decent enough fuck, though," he said.

"Merlin's saggy—" Ron glared at him. "_Breakfast_, Harry. Eat."

"Yeah, I'm on it," Harry said, snatching a piece of toast from a nearby plate. "So, the other day, I ran into him by Snape's old—"

"No."

"—storeroom, you know, the one in the Tapestry—"

"For fuck's sake."

"—Corridor and he—"

"Harry!" Ron grabbed Harry's robe, fork still in hand. A droplet of grease fell from the tip of a tine, landing noiselessly on Harry's shoulder.

Harry blinked.

"What?" he asked, belatedly.

"Shut it, mate." Ron sighed, slowly unclenching his fist. "Just shut it. I'm glad for you, really. But please, _please,_ no details."

* * *

Malfoy, too, felt completely alien to Harry most of the time, but at least _that_ Harry could explain. Malfoy was different. The old Malfoy never smoked Muggle cigarettes by the Great Lake, and he didn't stare at Harry as if he were trying to puzzle him out; and while the old Malfoy had been annoying beyond belief, the new one was relatively easy to ignore.

Then again, as of late, a lot of things were.

* * *

Years before Harry bought the house with the balcony looking out on the bay—when he did, Draco rolled his eyes and grumbled, "Merlin, you're such a Gryffindor," but then he smiled and agreed to move in with Harry anyway—it was just him and Malfoy, standing by a deserted Quidditch pitch after everyone else had left.

Malfoy stared contemplatively at Harry—or possibly somewhere past Harry, it was hard to tell with the sun shining into his eyes like that. Harry, meanwhile, stared at the bruises on the side of Malfoy's face, faded yellow bands against pale skin, and felt a twinge of something sickening in his chest that he couldn't quite place.

He wondered why Malfoy wasn't off with the rest of his house, celebrating their victory. Then, he wondered why he himself was still standing there, and not on his way back to the castle with Ron. It was ridiculous. It wasn't as if he and Malfoy had anything to discuss.

"I'd let you do me," Malfoy said, completely out of the blue, and Harry laughed a little—not so much in amusement as in surprise. It was nice, or perhaps nice wasn't the best word for it, but it was at least _something_. It was Harry not feeling quite so numb for a change.

"What, like you let everybody else?"

Malfoy nodded. "Like I let everybody else."

"But why?" It was a mystery. "Why are you doing this?" Harry couldn't understand this Malfoy, and for the first time, he thought he might actually _want_ to. It had been so long since he'd wanted anything other than sleep, but he could want this. If he let himself, he could.

"You've already asked that." Malfoy shrugged. He took a step forward. "And I've already told you."

"It was a bit of a shit answer, you must admit."

"Whatever, Potter." Malfoy took another step forward. He was close now, close enough that Harry could touch him if he wanted to. "Are you going to fuck me or not?"

The realisation hit Harry like a Bludger the moment Malfoy unclasped his cloak and shrugged it off his shoulders. "You're _serious,_" he blurted out before he could stop himself. His voice came out rough. It didn't sound like his voice at all.

Malfoy nodded, again, and grabbed the back of his school jumper, pulling it over his head. Malfoy's shirt slid up a little, exposing his flat stomach. There were more bruises there—stretching up along his sides—only these looked fresh.

"Bloody hell, you _are_ serious." Harry licked his lips.

"Yes, we've already"—the jumper joined the discarded cloak on the ground—"established that, you prat. Do try to keep up for once, will you?" Malfoy kicked off his shoes then paused, his hand hovering over the button on his trousers as he gave Harry an exasperated look. "Shagging, Potter," he said dryly. "Will it be happening anytime in the near future?"

"I don't think that's such …" Harry swallowed. He tried to think of all the reasons why that was probably a very bad idea, or rather, he tried to remember why they mattered. "I don't know if—What with you …" Malfoy being a Death Eater, Harry and his friends having been held prisoner at Malfoy Manor, Malfoy letting the Death Eaters into Hogwarts … he remembered all those things all right. He knew they had mattered at some point—they still mattered to most of his friends—but they just seemed so inconsequential then. "I really don't think this is …"

None of that had seemed important for a very long time.

It could stay that way a while longer, couldn't it?

"Chop-chop," Malfoy said, tilting his head. A soft strand of white-blond hair fell into his face, and he brushed it out of the way with a graceful hand.

_Fuck it_, Harry thought, because Malfoy was _there_ and he was fit, and he was _offering._ "All right."

"Really?" Judging by the stunned look on Malfoy's face, that wasn't the answer he'd been expecting.

"Sure. Why not?" Harry reached out to pull on the knot on Malfoy's tie until it slid off. The fabric hung limply from his hand. "Come on, we're not"—he pushed Malfoy's shoulders down, and there was a sudden rush of heat in his veins when Malfoy went willingly—"doing this standing up."

"You're really going to—" Malfoy looked up at Harry, all caution and doubt. It wasn't a look Harry often got to see on him. "Unbelievable," he breathed.

"Shut up," Harry said. He knelt between Malfoy's spread legs, undoing the button and zip on his trousers with one hand.

"But you're Harry Potter, you're the bloody—"

"You don't say."

"And you're really going to—" Malfoy grinned, biting the side of his lower lip before leaning back on his elbows. "My, I didn't think you had it in you."

"Shut _up,_ Malfoy." Harry tugged, rather ineffectually, at the waistband of Malfoy's trousers, and something fierce flashed in Malfoy's eyes. Something a lot more like the Malfoy Harry remembered from before the war.

"Make me."

Harry glanced down at his own hand.

"Fine." He rolled up the tie and pressed it against Malfoy's mouth, then watched, in amazement, as Malfoy's lips parted and allowed him to shove the fabric past them. They were soft and warm against Harry's fingers. "Keep that there," he said, "or I'm casting _Silencio,_" but he realised he wouldn't have. Not really. "Now, turn over."

Harry's breath hitched when Malfoy did.

* * *

Harry sometimes wished the place would crumble or burn, that there'd be an earthquake or a flood, or _something_, anything to feel the thrill of adrenaline in his blood.

He could still remember how that felt; he'd felt it often enough during the war. Everything else was just so muddy in his head, but that was clear. That was still there. It hadn't vanished, in spite of the all-encompassing dullness that was the past few months.

He even wished, sometimes, that Voldemort were still alive. At least then Harry would have a purpose. He wouldn't have to exist through day after day like a mindless fool. He had a life now, people kept telling him—a safe, beautiful one, allegedly—but people clearly had no idea. It was a life that didn't come with an instruction manual. Somehow, that was worse than anything else.

He told Hermione, once, because she was supposed to be the smart one. Hermione was supposed to know how to fix things, or at least how to deal with them, and Harry was so tired of waiting for things to fix themselves.

"Oh, Harry." She hugged him tightly. "I've read that can happen in some cases, but I really hoped …"

Whatever she'd hoped for wasn't particularly helpful when Harry had no idea what 'that' was, or which cases she was referring to.

"It'll get better." She pulled back, keeping her hands on the sides of his arms, as if she feared he might disappear if she so much as let go. She looked torn. "Just don't do anything stupid, all right?"

She said that as if she believed Harry could, as if that wouldn't take an awful lot of effort, at a time when Harry barely had enough energy to make it to his lessons.

"It _will_ get better, in time," she insisted, but Harry wasn't sure he agreed. Would that be a few months, years or decades? How much longer was he supposed to just sit back and wait?

It was the bloody waiting that was slowly doing him in.

* * *

The bathroom incident happened shortly after Harry came upon Malfoy smoking Muggle cigarettes by the lake, and Malfoy_—__Malfoy,_ who hadn't said a single word to Harry in the seven months since the Battle of Hogwarts—greeted him as if they were old friends. He even made some stupid remark about how it was probably a good thing that they were now too old to be given detention.

Harry stood by the sinks, hidden under his Invisibility Cloak. He didn't have a clue why he was doing that. Surely, any normal person would have left, but this was post-war Harry, and post-war Harry just watched, glued to the spot, as some seventh year Ravenclaw—at least Harry thought he was a Ravenclaw, but he could just as easily have been a Slytherin, or even a Hufflepuff; Harry couldn't be bothered remembering their faces anymore—slammed his prick down Malfoy's throat again, and again, and again.

Malfoy stayed where he was even after the other boy had left, kneeling with his back pressed against the tiled wall. His lips were swollen and moist. A faint trickle of dried blood stretched vertically from the corner of his mouth, all the way down to his chin.

"I know you're there, Potter," Malfoy said. His voice cracked on the last syllable of Harry's family name. "You might as well show yourself."

Harry pushed back the hood of his cloak, moving to stand in front of Malfoy. "You look like crap." It wasn't entirely true. Malfoy looked beaten and bruised, but somehow, that wasn't enough to mar his looks—if anything, it made him look a bit feral and even more striking. "I could heal those for you."

"So could I if I wanted to." Malfoy leant his head back against the wall, letting his eyes fall shut. "And yet, I haven't, so we can safely assume I don't."

"Why are you doing this?" Harry didn't know what possessed him to ask that. It wasn't because Malfoy looked like he'd been in a fistfight—or a couple dozens, or possibly been used as target practice. Frankly, nobody gave a shit what Malfoy got up to these days, least of all Harry.

He didn't ask because of the split lip, or the mess of yellow and purple that was Malfoy's neck, or even because of the way Malfoy's eyes looked like he hadn't slept in months. Harry had no idea why he wanted to know, but it was certainly refreshing to want something, even if it was something as trivial as this.

"Because I'm good at it." Malfoy didn't open his eyes. He didn't move at all.

Harry snorted. "Right."

"Think what you will, Potter. See if I care." Malfoy glared at him then, but it was tired, flat. It looked harmless. It looked nothing like the old Malfoy. "I'm done being useless, and this," he added quietly, "this is something I'm good at." He sighed. "I'm done with being a bleeding failure and … hurting people. I've had enough of that to last me a lifetime."

"I see." Harry raised his eyebrows. "So now you're—what? Making them feel good, for a change?"

"Yes."

Harry nodded, even though none of this made sense. "By letting them fuck your mouth into oblivion."

Malfoy rolled his eyes. "If that's what it takes."

"Sure, that sounds healthy," Harry said lightly. "I'm sure you couldn't have gone about it any other way."

Malfoy frowned, briefly, before looking away. "And why in the bloody hell would you care?"

Harry smiled coldly. "Never said I did."

But afterwards, he realised he _could,_ if he just let himself.

* * *

Harry even told Draco once about how he wished he could have Voldemort back.

Draco made a wet choking sound and gingerly pushed himself off Harry's cock. There was a thin trail of precome and spit sliding down from his bottom lip, and Harry's fingers itched to wipe it clean. He wasn't sure why, but it shouldn't be there. Not on Draco's face. Just like the bruises shouldn't be there.

"I can't believe—" Draco looked up at him with very round eyes. "You are much, much sicker than I originally thought," he said, sounding a bit breathless, before taking Harry deep into his throat again.

Oddly enough, that had helped for a while, even if Harry had no idea why it would.

* * *

A few days before the school year came to an end, bringing with it the beginning of a whole new challenge—that of figuring out what to do with their lives from then on—Draco lay with his head on Harry's lap, leafing through an old issue of _Seeker Weekly _as Harry carded his fingers through Draco's soft hair.

"Perhaps you had a point," Draco said, when Harry smoothed his palm down over the taut plane of Draco's stomach, "this is probably unhealthy."

Harry stilled. "Does that bother you?"

Draco seemed to ponder this for a while; Harry waited, uneasily, for an answer to come.

"No, not really," he said at last, and Harry let out a long breath he wasn't even aware he'd been holding. "I reckon it's far healthier than that other thing I was doing, before."

"Shagging everyone in sight?"

Draco grinned sheepishly up at him. "That thing, yes."

Harry thought about those words. He thought about the sixth floor bathroom, all those months ago, about a million stolen kisses in empty classrooms and dark corridors between then and now. He thought about the way his breath caught in his chest whenever Draco smiled his way. And then it hit him. "So … I take it you're not doing that anymore?"

"It got old after a while." Draco shrugged. "It's in the past now."

"Oh. All right." Harry blinked. "Wait, does that mean—Do you want to …" What? Break up? Move on?

"No! No. I actually like you, you git."

Harry just laughed, and, okay, it wasn't really funny. It was likely nerves, or relief, or something. But it felt good, whatever it was. It felt warm.

"You don't tell me I'm a failure, or a—You think I'm _good_ at things." Draco cocked his head and looked at Harry with a mischievous gleam in his eyes. "Even if they're always obscure, unspecified things."

It was true. There were plenty of things Draco was good at. He was good at reminding Harry he was human, and smart enough not to push too hard when Harry didn't feel like talking. He was good at making Harry smile, at making him feel less lost and more grounded. But Harry wasn't ready to tell him all that.

"That's because you are," he said instead. So what if he was being deliberately cryptic?

"I think …" Draco started. "I think we can be okay." He swallowed, glancing up at Harry and then away. "Together, I mean."

Harry smiled before leaning down for a quick kiss. "I think you're right," he said.

They _would_ be okay, in time.

**The End**


End file.
